Category Archives: Ann Arbor

Rich Internet Application Jam at SRT January 14-16

SRT Solutions will be hosting an RIA Jam, with Bruce Eckel, James Ward (Adobe) and Josh Holmes (Microsoft).  This self-paced exploration of rich internet options will give participants the ability to learn about Flex and Silverlight and to talk about JavaFX, which doesn't seem to be quite ready for prime time just yet.

I've done several of the jams that Bruce has organized, and I have found them to be great learning experiences. I'm thrilled that we will be hosting this at our new office in Ann Arbor.  We've been getting inquiries about it already, and since enrollment is limited to 30 participants, it seems prudent to register early (plus, early bird pricing of $400 by Jan 2 versus $500 after that makes registering early wise as well).  Sure, you could learn these technologies on your own, but I've found that learning in a jam session like this helps me stay focused when I get frustrated, and that's proved to be really helpful.

Oh, and Adobe is throwing in a free FlexBuilder license with your paid registration fee.  Nice!

Registration and more information are available on Bruce's site. 

 

Ann Arbor Tech events this week

It's the first week of the month.  Do my children wonder where their mother is? 

On Tuesday, Dec. 4, Brent Hill of Google will be presenting "Everything you want to know about blogs and RSS". That event will be at the Google office in Ann Arbor at McKinley Towne Center, 5th Floor, 201 S. Division, Ann Arbor, from 5-7 pm.  Registration is required, at www.annarborusa.org.

On Wednesday, Dec. 5, Kevin DuBois will be talking about the latest features of Ubuntu Linux, at the Ann Arbor Computer Society meeting.  That meeting will start around 6 pm at the SRT Solutions offices, 206 S. Fifth Ave, Suite 200, Ann Arbor.

On Thursday, Dec. 6, the Michigan Python User Group will meet at SRT Solutions offices to discuss distributed version control systems.  Mercurial and Bazaar NG are written in Python.

All of these events are free.  Hope to see you at one or more!

NOTE: There are NO SRT lightning talks this week.  The only December lightning talks will be NEXT Friday (Dec 16) from 3-5 pm, at SRT Solutions offices.
 

 

Lightning Talks Overview for 11/30/2007

We had a large crowd for lightning talks today (11 people is a good turnout). 

 
Bill Wagner talked about the Halloween problem.

Rick Harding talked about Google SketchUp and how he's using it for laying out his garage.

Bill Heitzeg talked about Javadoc Online and its Eclipse plugin.

Jay Wren talked about NUnit Forms.

I talked about some cool podcasts for staying current with technology (Java Posse, .NET Rocks, IT Conversations, Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders).

Mike Woelmer talked about RegistrationFree COM.

Phil Huhn talked about testing using Team Foundation Server.

We also had a talk on "Vote Early Vote Often" from She Who Will Not Be Named describing how her voter registration got screwed up and she was issued two valid voter registrations.  It highlighted how when there are multiple places where data can be input, duplicate data in databases may not be properly resolved.
 

 

I hope that you'll join us next time.  Because of the holidays, we will only have one set of lightning talks for December, and those will be December 14 from 3-5 pm.  Maybe I'll bring cookies and eggnog!

 

JBoss Seam at the AAJUG on November 27

The Ann Arbor Java Users Group will be meeting on Tuesday, November 27, with David Ward of JBoss speaking on "JBoss Seam and the Red Hat Developer Studio".  Food and networking at 6:30, meeting will start at 7:15.  Zattoo is sponsoring (food and location), so they are asking for RSVPs to jsyang@zattoo.com.   See below.

Zattoo will be serving food and beverages.
Open networking will begin at 6:00 PM, food will be served at 6:30 PM, and the presentation will start at 7:15 PM.
Map to Zattoo:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=zattoo,+Ann+Arbor,+MI&ie=UTF8&ll=42.290644,-83.74835&spn=0.045778,0.097504&z=14&iwloc=A&om=1

Meeting Information:

"JBoss Seam and the Red Hat Developer Studio" – JBoss Seam is a modern enterprise Java application framework, integrating the best practices learned from past frameworks, and innovating in areas where they have been deficient.  Using JBoss Seam, developers are more productive as they leverage Seam's powerful yet simple component model, state management facilities, presentation and business tier integration, and more. The Red Hat Developer Studio (RHDS) is a set of Eclipse-based tools that are pre-configured for JBoss Enterprise Middleware, offering significant time-savings and value to developers.  A summary of JBoss Seam and RHDS features will be presented during this technical session, followed by a detailed demonstration of creating a Seam application using RHDS.

Presenter BIO:

David Ward is a Solutions Architect within the JBoss division of Red Hat. He has over 12 years experience designing and developing enterprise systems across various fields such as online commerce, payroll services, pharmaceutical applications, real estate, printing, document management, inventory management and more.  He has authored numerous Java related articles and whitepapers.  David is a longtime JBoss evangelist and joined Red Hat in October 2006.

We’re at the A2 Tech Fair today

SRT Solutions is recruiting on the University of Michigan campus today.  Eta Kappa Nu, the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science honor society, is hosting a career fair for its students.  We're interested in bringing in both interns and new grads.  We've also brought handouts about events like our lightning talks and the user group meetings in Ann Arbor, many of which are held in our office. We're hoping to include attract a younger crowd to those as well.

Football themed lightning talks at SRT this Friday

OK, it's that time of year again.  Michigan vs. Ohio State for the Big 10 Championship.  And the game is IN Ann Arbor this year, so, at the suggestion of one of our consultants (thanks Peggy!), we have decided to "theme" our lightning talks around football this week.  Yes, all talks are still welcomed, but be forewarned that SOME talks may have a football influence.

I, for example, was planning to do a Scala talk (which I still may do, if there is enough time in the schedule), but my primary talk will be the "little yellow line" (first down line). I LOVE LOVE LOVE the little yellow line. OK, that's all I had better say about that lest I not leave any material for my 5-10 minute talk!

Talks will be scheduled upon arrival and limited to 10 minutes.  Buckeyes, Wolverines, and even non-football fans are welcomed!

We will have some buffalo wings for sharing.  Please join us on Friday, November 16, from 3-5 pm at 206 S. Fifth Ave, Suite 200.

 

Speaking at CodeMash

My talk has been accepted at CodeMash.  I'll be leading a discussion about Scala, which is combines functional and object-oriented programming and runs on the JVM.  Yes, the JVM is the Java Virtual Machine, but much like the CLR (which is the .NET platform), the JVM supports many different languages.  Scala is one of those languages (as is Groovy, Jython, JRuby, and many others).

I'll be previewing sections of my talk at our upcoming lightning talks. 

SRT Solutions Awarded FastTrack Award

On Friday, November 9, at the Deals of the Year Gala, the Ann Arbor Business Review awarded a "FastTrack" 2007 award to SRT Solutions, in recognition of our growth as a company.  Bill and I owe this in great part to our employees and consultants: Patrick Steele, Darrell Hawley, Mike Woelmer, Rocky Krcatovich, Alex Gheith, Jay Wren,  Phil Huhn, Peggy Page, and Charlie Sears.  Thanks, all!

Fast Track award 

 

Ann Arbor Java User Group meeting tonight

Just got the word that I totally missed that there is an AAJUG meeting tonight.   Kirsten Henderson from iDashboards is speaking on:

“JSR 223: Scripting for the Java Platform”

Date: Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
Time: 7:00PM – 9:00PM EDT

Open Networking starts at 7 PM.

We will have giveaways such as T-Shirts, Pens, etc. as well as a raffle for a free license of JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA Version 7.0.

Meeting Location:
Washtenaw Community College, WCC BE250
www.wccnet.org/search/roomlocator/

PRESENTATION:
===========

JSR 223: Scripting for the Java Platform: The Java Scripting API (JSR-223) consists of a script language independent framework that provides developers with the power to leverage the strengths of a scripting language (JavaScript, Ruby, Python, etc.) from within their Java applications. This presentation will focus on demonstrating how the Java Scripting API empowers Java developers to choose the best tool for a given task rather than having to work within the confines of a given language. Emphasis will be placed on the interface itself and the usage of third-party scripting engines to execute scripts rather than the intricacies of implementing a scripting engine.

Speaker BIO:
=============

Kirsten Henderson is a Software Developer on iDashboards, a Business Intelligence enterprise dashboard application.